A Long Time Coming

First of all...shame on me for waiting almost a whole MONTH since my last post. Yikes! I told you all I would be blogging once a week and trying to do better about that this year and so far I've done worse! This is what happens when I make New Year's resolutions...I should have just not officially declared that I would do better and I probably would have made more of an effort...ironic, I know!

Anyway...part of my rationale for NOT posting in the past few weeks is because we're really just living our everyday lives here and there didn't seem to be much 'of note' that you all would be interested in.

Having said that though, let me see if I can recap the past few weeks for you...

Fri. 2/1:
We got together with a big group of friends to check out the New Zealand Breakers game. The Breakers are the professional basketball team here...although we were told that they are actually part of the Australian league. Anywho...there are a few Americans on the team, but the caliber of the game was much different than an NBA game would be back home. Despite that, we had a big group that went...we had dinner before and drinks after and it was a really fun night!

Sat. 2/2:
Since we didn't get enough of our wonderful friends the night before, we decided to have a huge bbq on Saturday night at Leah & Craig's place. There were about 28 people there at one point and everyone brought tons of great food and beverages. After dinner we got a rousing game of Balderdash going which handed out some pretty good laughs.

Tues. 2/5:
Waitangi Day is a national holiday here in NZ that just happened to fall in the middle of the week this year. But since Drew had Wednesday off of work, we decided to treat ourselves to a movie on Tuesday night...it also helped that Tuesdays are the discount days so tickets are only $11 a piece--wooo hooo!!! We went to see Silver Linings Playbook and both thought it was pretty good. A little slow as far as the story goes, but the acting was incredible and the dance scene at the end is hysterical.

Wed. 2/6:
This was the aforementioned holiday so we packed up our beach stuff and headed to Orewa Beach to meet Will & Tally. However, when we arrived we were literally the only ones there and we quickly figured out why...even though it was bright and sunny it was a whopping 54 degrees and, therefore, not really the kind of weather where you want to be in a bathing suit and frolicking in the ocean.


We stayed until about lunchtime and the headed back into town...Drew went to get a haircut and I went to a chiropractor appointment which has been a long time coming! I've had lower back pain for the better part of a decade...and after having some x-rays done (which the national healthcare paid for...thank you very much) it turns out that 6 vertebrae in my lower spine are pinched together and apparently my tailbone was broken 6 years ago and I never knew it...score! However, I have been going back for weekly visits since then and she said I'm making a lot of progress...fingers crossed!

Anyway--that night, our friend, Kacee, had a friend who was coming to visit NZ and run in a marathon in the south island. Her friend, Andie, was only in Auckland for one night and it happened to be when Kacee and her husband were out of town. So a group of us got together, picked up Andie, and headed out to Mission Bay to try an Indian restaurant called Masala. It is a favorite of our friends Will & Tally and if you go Monday through Wednesday, all dinners are only $10--what a bargain!

Thurs. 2/7:
Today was a crafting day for me and Tally--we went out shopping for supplies and then came back to my place to put everything together. I had recently had all of my jewelry spread all over our guest bed because it was the only space big enough to lay it all out where it wouldn't get tangled. So our project was to make a jewelry holder that I could hang on the perfect empty wall space in our bedroom. I have to give Tally most of the credit for this, but it turned out great and hasn't fallen down...yet!

Sat. 2/9:

Drew was able to get some fairly cheap tickets to the Black Caps cricket match through PwC. We took the train with Will & Tally down to Eden Park and grabbed yummy pizza at a small place right across from the stadium with another PwC couple. They were all in a different section than us, but our seats were really good. Unfortunately, we didn't understand any of the rules (despite trying to read them on my phone) and once the sun went down it was pretty darn cold! We only stayed for about 2/3 of the match before we threw in the towel and headed home. Still a fun experience though!



Sun. 2/10:
We got to participate in our first book club meeting! Our group of friends started doing a big book club back before Christmas, but this is the first one we were able to go to. We all reread The Great Gastby in preparation for the movie coming out in a few months. I read the book...Drew listened to the audio version on our train ride back in January. We went to Katie & Kevin's place and had Sal's pizza and some treats and then head to a nearby park to enjoy the fading summer weather and discuss the book. It was really a fun thing to do!



Tues. 2/12:
We tried another round of quiz night at Carpark with a group of friends. We had a smaller group of only 6 this time and it was not a pretty site at the end. We didn't do nearly as well as we did the first time, but we did get to use our $50 winnings from the time before and still had a great time. Trivia can either make you feel really smart or realllllllllly stupid!

Wed. 2/13:

Drew and I celebrated Valentine's Day a day early to beat the crowd and avoid surcharges...yes there are some places here that charge you extra to dine on certain holidays...lame! We walked down to Wynyard Quarter and had a waterfront dinner at Urban Turban. If you had told me a year ago that we'd be having our Valentine's dinner (or any dinner for that matter) at an Indian restaurant sharing curry and butter chicken, I would have died laughing. See--we are becoming citizens of the world :)



Fri. 2/15:
Darleen, who is the president of the women's club and lives in our complex, invited a group of us 'young folks' over so that we could meet her kids who were in town visiting from LA. It was Darleen, her daughter Coco, her son Matt & his fiancé Christina, me & Drew, Amy sans James (he was sick) and another young Aussie couple, Shaun & Frances, who live next doorto Darleen. We had lots of drinks and 'nibbles' at Darleen's before heading down to Wynyard Quarter to Marvel Grill for dinner. We had such a great time and made more new friends which makes me so happy! Even though some of them have already gone back to the States after their short visit, it was a great evening!

Sat. 2/16:
We got up early to get an oil change and WOF done on our car. A WOF is a government-regulated inspection that must be done on your car every 6 months to make sure it's safe to be out on the road. After the 2 check ups and a whole list of things that would probably have to be done to the car in the next year, we really buckled down and decided to pursue getting a new car. We went out to a dealership, test drove a car, and 3 hours later we were the proud owners of a 2004 Honda Fit! We lovingly refer to her as the 'Silver Bullet' or the 'roller skate.' I told Drew that if we traded her in for a minivan sometime in the next year, I would have owned all 3 cars I swore I would never have...a station wagon, a hatchback and a minivan. Hopefully that won't be the case because we really like this car so far and it literally costs HALF as much to fill up as the old one. We have taken the Blue Beauty out to Turner's Auctions and we're desperately hoping that it sells--fingers crossed, everyone!



That night, Will & Tally came over to our place and we tried out a recipe from a Donna Hay cookbook that Tally checked out from the library. The guys sat around and drank whisky while we prepped and cooked everything. Dinner was amazing--I would highly recommend her recipes! We chatted a while and listened to my iTunes dinner mix...which was pretty good if I do say so myself...and then they taught us how to play Eucher...which is a card game very similar to Spades if you've never heard of it.

Sun. 2/17:
Since we're technically a day ahead here, Sunday for us was the wedding day for two of our wonderful friends, Walt & Kate. They were getting married in Mexico and from what we heard and saw in pictures, it was absolutely perfect! They had a link to a video stream so we got some pies for breakfast and settled in to watch their wedding online. However, the link was overloaded and wouldn't work so we didn't get to see them :( However, our other dear friend, Densay, was able to call us on FaceTime so that we could say hi to the bride and groom!

So that's a brief--or not so brief--recap of the highlights from this month. This past week has been Drew's busiest yet, but things will probably be worse before they get better...standard busy season motto, right?? He's been working his butt off, but it's my job to remind him that there are so many hours in a day and some of those hours have to be spent with me...or sleeping :) A group of PwC people is getting together tonight and apparently there is another PwC wife here that I'll get to meet--looking forward to that!

I promise, promise, promise that I will try to do better about writing more regularly...even if the posts aren't that long or interesting!

Cheers!